Hiding in the shadow of death
It is rather unbelievable that a military state such as Israel keeps on escaping international regulations as and when it deems necessary. The IDF knows that the wars it wages are not morally correct, yet it keeps on continuosly 'erasing villages' without solid evidence that these villages are being used by so-called 'terrorists'. And what are the results of such actions? Well apart for the thousands of dead caused by the Israeli war machine, Israel will continue on being considered a state serving a barbaric war machine. The following article is the latest describing how Israeli officials are trying to escape from being tried as war criminals.
Officials said fearing wave of war crimes suits over Lebanon
By Haaretz Service
The Foreign Ministry fears a wave of lawsuits accusing Israeli military and governmental officials of war crimes, Army Radio said Monday, adding that a report prepared by the ministry's chief legal advisor warns officials against inflammatory statements in connection with the recent war, saying that their words could later be used against them in foreign lawsuits or indictments for alleging them to be war criminals.In the past, a number of IDF generals have deferred visits to Europe, for fear of arrest over allegations of war crimes in connection with the Intifada.Cabinet Minister Yitzhak Herzog, currently traveling in Finland, said Monday that international conventions granted government officials immunity from prosecution, but that the problem was "much more complicated" with respect to IDF officers, especially retired officers.
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"There is no question that there is an effort by organizations of various kinds to harm, in particular, [IDF] officers and commanders. This certainly doesn't touch the governmental echelon, but this takes nothing away from the seriousness of the problem." According to Herzog, after the Intifada, Israel approved "an envelope of legal defense to senior officials and officers, and I believe that the outline that the Foreign Ministry is proposing for many of these issues, is a correct one."Cabinet minister Eli Yishai and former justice minister Haim Ramon are among those who have been mentioned as having made especially harsh statements in wartime, during which Israeli ministers were quoted as having advocated "taking down" villages which served as shelters for Hezbollah.Legal authority Yael Ronen said Monday that some officers or government officials who traveled to Europe stood the risk of being arrested."In connection with war criminals, international law holds that due to the severity of the charges, nations may bring the accused to trial, no matter where the crimes were committed, nor against whom," she told the radio.Herzog said he had spoken with Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz on the issue during the war. "He stated that the army was taking all of this under consideration, and was acting according to the rules, and had certainly internalized this consideration in its actions."
Officials said fearing wave of war crimes suits over Lebanon
By Haaretz Service
The Foreign Ministry fears a wave of lawsuits accusing Israeli military and governmental officials of war crimes, Army Radio said Monday, adding that a report prepared by the ministry's chief legal advisor warns officials against inflammatory statements in connection with the recent war, saying that their words could later be used against them in foreign lawsuits or indictments for alleging them to be war criminals.In the past, a number of IDF generals have deferred visits to Europe, for fear of arrest over allegations of war crimes in connection with the Intifada.Cabinet Minister Yitzhak Herzog, currently traveling in Finland, said Monday that international conventions granted government officials immunity from prosecution, but that the problem was "much more complicated" with respect to IDF officers, especially retired officers.
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"There is no question that there is an effort by organizations of various kinds to harm, in particular, [IDF] officers and commanders. This certainly doesn't touch the governmental echelon, but this takes nothing away from the seriousness of the problem." According to Herzog, after the Intifada, Israel approved "an envelope of legal defense to senior officials and officers, and I believe that the outline that the Foreign Ministry is proposing for many of these issues, is a correct one."Cabinet minister Eli Yishai and former justice minister Haim Ramon are among those who have been mentioned as having made especially harsh statements in wartime, during which Israeli ministers were quoted as having advocated "taking down" villages which served as shelters for Hezbollah.Legal authority Yael Ronen said Monday that some officers or government officials who traveled to Europe stood the risk of being arrested."In connection with war criminals, international law holds that due to the severity of the charges, nations may bring the accused to trial, no matter where the crimes were committed, nor against whom," she told the radio.Herzog said he had spoken with Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz on the issue during the war. "He stated that the army was taking all of this under consideration, and was acting according to the rules, and had certainly internalized this consideration in its actions."
posted by beirutlive at 11:06 AM
7 Comments:
hcb, m2t:
"I can think of nothing more poisonous than to rot in the stink of your own reflections."
If you are telling your guests that you don't want to hear their voices, then you just want to look in a mirror, don't you? If all I was interested in was reinforcing my own opinion, do you think I would be here? I like being sensibly refuted, it makes me feel lots better.
Your attitudes aren't just a product of recent history, however, but were carefully nurtured by many people over decades and at great expense. Here's part of how it was done:
Today’s international terrorism was conceived at the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the KGB, in the aftermath of the1967 Six-Day War in the Middle East. I witnessed its birth in my other life, as a Communist general....
...In the mid 1970s, the KGB ordered my service, the DIE — along with other East European sister services — to scour the country for trusted party activists belonging to various Islamic ethnic groups, train them in disinformation and terrorist operations, and infiltrate them into the countries of our “sphere of influence.” Their task was to export a rabid, demented hatred for American Zionism by manipulating the ancestral abhorrence for Jews felt by the people in that part of the world. Before I left Romania for good, in 1978, my DIE had dispatched around 500 such undercover agents to Islamic countries...
Do you not understand your heroes have destroyed a country for no good reason?...you come to spout your nonsense in the midst of their attempts to heal...Go away. Go be with your heroes and talk of your bombing successes... We don't care why you barged in.
- HB, September 4th, 2006
“[we] did not think, even 1% that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 … that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not”.
Hassan Nasrallah, August 27th, 2006
Once upon a time, a country existed that rocketed its neighbors indiscrimately...when avenging Allied tanks encountered resisting German villages, they reduced the buildings to mere memorials, and the villagers to penury. No one seems to consider these actions a crime today. What would be wrong if Israel levelled Gaza and drove its inhabitants away tomorrow?
- Solomon2, July 9th, 2006
Look at that last date: three days before Hezbollah abducted the Israeli soldiers. If enough Lebanese had read those words might Nasrallah have aborted the operation, so that hundreds of Lebanese and Israelis would still be alive today, with their homes intact? Do you still think it is desirable for me to stop blogging and commenting?
I know that the Lebanese have had enough of war and wish to heal now. Yet Lebanon needs to do more before peace can be assured. Return the Israeli soldiers. Every other Arab nation - Syria, Egypt, and Jordan - has returned captured Israeli soldiers per agreement. Only Lebanon is breaking its word - and paragraph 3 of UNSC 1701 states that their UNCONDITIONAL return is a precondition of the cease-fire. For the sake of a last inhumane dig at Israel, are you not risking renewed war and violating Lebanon's national honor and unity?
hcb, you are entitled to your own opinions, of course, but you are not entitled to your own facts. If there is nothing you can offer us to increase your credibility or disparage mine, then why should anyone believe in your arguments or opinions? Why do you believe in them yourself? Why play the role of willing sap that dead Communists and live dictators and Islamists have assigned to you?
"Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
I feel sorry for you all. Each side is blind and like a blind man without a cane or eye-seeing dog, you fling about, carelessly tossing about stats and news blurbs that may lend some credence to your version of events. Pitiful. We are headed for all out conflict and it will be at the behest of those similar in mind and spirit to Hcb and Doc. Their ignorance and single minded bias will cause the chickens to come to rest. We Christians are beginning to awaken to the threats posed by Islamists and their apologists to world peace and humane ways of life. What a pity that the muslim masses will be the ones to pay the price of medieval logic.
Hey Hcb and Doc, why do you not at least pay lipservice to the concept of balance and denounce the cult of death and destruction espoused by that paradise of Islamic virtue called Iran. Is it because you are intellectually incapable of mental exercises that demand an open mind? Are you fearful of reprisal? Or is it more simple than that? Perhaps you desire bloodshed and understand that Iran and its economic, military and intelligence apparatus guarantees a Lebanon fraught with violence and the death of innocent civilians. Of course, all of that could be avoided by a mass conversion to the tenants of the Koran.
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